1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microscope system and in particular to a microscope system enabling a selective mounting of a manual operation unit such as an optical element.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional microscope system has a control unit that stores, and controls, information necessary for operations (noted as “operation information” hereinafter) of all electrical operation units such as a starting speed, acceleration and deceleration, operation stroke and operation timing. The control unit recognizes a category of an electrical operation unit connected by way of a cable. An electrical operation unit is controlled according to operation information pre-stored in the control unit. In a modern electrically-operated microscope system, a mounting part of an optical element which is freely interchangeable by a user is also electrically operated, enabling the user, merely by an operation, to direct a desired optical element to, or instruct an operation of it in, an optical path which is set by him/herself. There is, however, a problem that the user him/herself must perform an input and a setup, both in the control unit for configuring an optical element at an initial setup. That is, the microscope system has not been capable of recognizing a configuration of an optical element at the time of turning the power on, while it is capable of controlling an electrical operation unit thereat.
Accordingly conceived for solving the above described problem is a microscope system using a storage medium enabling a noncontact reading and writing of information (named as “noncontact storage medium” hereinafter).
For example, a patent document 1 has disclosed a microscope system enabling a user to recognize information of an object lens at the time of turning on the power without his/her own input by equipping a noncontact storage medium which stores information of an object lens corresponding to the present object lens.
A patent document 2 has disclosed a microscope system enabling a user to recognize information of an optical element at the time of turning on the power without his/her own input by equipping a noncontact storage medium which stores information of an optical element corresponding to the present optical element.
The microscope systems disclosed by these patent documents are configured to be capable of recognizing an optical path and how a setup is carried out at the time of turning the power on by equipping a noncontact storage medium.
Another known concept is a microscope system performing a setup for photographing by using information stored in a storage medium.
For example, a patent document 3 has disclosed a microscope system capable of reading a photographing condition from a storage medium and setting up accordingly. The setup information read from the storage medium is information of an electrical operation unit. The storage medium also stores, in addition to the aforementioned information, pieces of information, such as a dyeing method for a sample, category of a light source and photographed date and time. An internal memory also stores setup information to some extent, enabling an automatic setup of a unit to the light path by selecting a setup condition close to the stored setup information. Meanwhile, such setup information allows a modification, thus enabling a customization for a specific user.
In the microscope systems disclosed in the above noted patent documents, however, the noncontact storage medium and storage medium are specialized for the functions of reading information of the optical element and electrical operation unit disclosed in the patent documents. The user wishes to eventually obtain an observation image with ease and a high reproducibility by way of a large number of optical elements and photographing systems. In order to fulfill such a wish, it is necessary to obtain not only the information of the optical element and electrical operation unit which are disclosed in the patent document, but also information of other units, e.g., manual operation units including a microscope tube, adaptor, et cetera.    [Patent document 1] Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-196255    [Patent document 2] Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-145343    [Patent document 3] Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H05-142481